Monday, January 11, 2016

Kindergartners Taught Transgenderism in St. Paul

Parents are organizing to combat the Gay Agenda "transgender activism" recently launched by administrators at Nova Classical Academy where a 5-year-old boy is being encouraged to dress like a girl. The public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota announced a new curriculum to train all students in the latest sexual revolution craze.

"Transgender is new to a lot of people. If we don't make intentional efforts to educate kids on certain things ... we are going to be putting out fires all the time."-- Eric Williams, Executive Director, Nova Classical Academy

The parents of a 5-year-old child who is gender nonconforming asked Nova Classical Academy to help make sure their student was not being bullied.

Outside groups stepped in and the school’s board got involved when other parents heard that faculty members were talking with children about such bullying. Now the Minnesota Family Council plans to hold a community meeting Tuesday at the school to discuss the issue.

Autumn Leva of the Minnesota Family Council, a Minneapolis-based Christian organization, said parents were uncomfortable with faculty reading about transgender issues to their children.

St. Paul Public Schools approved a gender inclusion policy in March, which says staff in the school district will respect students' gender identity and provide them with access to facilities that best align with that identity.

That includes bathrooms — which has some parents particularly riled up.

"Nova parents, however, are not sitting by quietly as the school puts their children at risk," a news release from the Minnesota Family Council said. "Nearly 400 parents have signed a petition opposing mixed-sex bathrooms. … Several parents have pulled their students out of Nova or off the waiting list."

Nova is considering the St. Paul Public Schools' inclusion policy but has not yet adopted it and has not made any decisions about who can use which bathrooms, Williams said.

Two sets of parents pulled their kindergartners out of Nova Classical Academy this school year after school officials announced they'd be "taking steps to support a student who is gender non-conforming."

In October, the school told parents it was planning to hold classroom conversations around a series of books about gender nonconformity in order to make the boy feel accepted and included. A large number of parents opted out of the sessions, which were revised to a reading of a passage about children whose gender identities don't align with gender norms.

School leaders since have organized a task force to consider curricular changes, adopted a resolution of support and held an information session about gender identity.

Jamie Knippel, who has three children attending Nova, doesn't understand why the school in St. Paul's West End has paid special attention to gender-nonconforming students. She said it should be enough for the school to teach all kids to be kind to each other and then address bullying case by case.